


Spike and Willow in the Heart of Darkness

by shadowkat67



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Essays, Films, Literary References & Allusions, Meta, Other, non-fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-13
Updated: 2009-07-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Summary: Comparison of Spike and Willow's Journey in s6 to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the film Apocalypse Now.





	Spike and Willow in the Heart of Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Written prior to Villians and Seeing Red.

"Oh, I'm beginning to understand this now. It's all about the journey, isn't it?" Giles (while watching Apocalypse Now in Restless, Season 4, Btvs.) Actually Giles, it's also about the reasons we take it.

Been thinking a lot about Apocalypse Now, a movie by Francis Ford Coppola and for those of you who haven't seen it, is about the journey into the Heart of Darkness. It was adapted from the Joseph Conrad novel of the same name. The story centers on Marlow and Kurtz, two men that are almost mirror images of each other. Marlow and Kurtz both take journeys at different points in time into the jungle; in Conrad's novel - the jungle is the Congo, located in the heart of Africa, in Apocalypse Now it's the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia. No light penetrates the heart of these jungles. It is the jungle of the subconscious, where the monster lies. And like the characters of Btvs, these men battle monsters.

The writers of Btvs are taking two characters into the heart of darkness. Willow, a human who practices witchcraft, is about to venture inside the darkness of her soul, and Spike, an insane vampire who has been helping humans, is about to venture into the dark jungles of Africa. Both journeys are symbolic, one is interior while the other is exterior and if the spoilers are true, the writers are planning on paralleling them throughout the end of this season and possibly next.

It's interesting to note that in Season 1 of Btvs, the gang fights vampires and witches before they discover any other monsters. So it is only fitting that in Season 6 we are following the parallel journeys of a vampire and a witch into the heart of darkness.

First the vampire: Jesse - a geeky boy - is turned into a vampire in HARVEST, (Second episode of season 1 Btvs.) He relishes the new power flowing through him and immediately seeks out the girl who dumped him to enjoy his new confidence and power. In some ways Jesse's story is very similar to Spike's: both started out as "geeky" men rejected by the lady of their dreams, met up with a seductive female vamp Darla/Drusilla and became vampires. They both describe the experience as exhilarating.

Jesse: I feel good, Xander! I feel strong! I'm connected, man, to everything! (Harvest, Btvs, season 1)

Spike: Becoming a vampire is a profound and powerful experience. I could feel this new strength coursing through me. Getting killed made me feel alive for the very first time. (Fool For Love, Btvs, Season 5)

Poor Jesse gets staked before the end of the episode. Spike survives five seasons - possibly because he helps Buffy in Becoming Part II and possibly because of the chip. But of the two characters - Spike is transformed, at least partially into the reluctant helpmate of the Scooby Gang. Jesse becomes a pile of dust.

Now the witch: in the third episode of Btvs season 1, Witch, we meet Amy, an insecure teen whose mother, Catherine, has switched bodies with her using dark magic. Catherine wants to relive her glory days as a high school cheerleader, winning trophies, etc - she uses her power to obtain a sort of arrested development not unlike a vampire. Unlike Willow, Catherine's witchcraft really hasn't been used to help people or to enact vengeance. But like Willow, she gets off on her power, she had been responsible her whole life, marrying young, having a child, and she wants to go back to high school and have fun. As Anya states in Smashed: "Responsible people are ... always so concerned with ... being good all the time, that when they finally get a taste of being bad ... they can't get enough. It's like all (gestures) kablooey."

When Catherine attempts to kill Buffy by sending her soul into a dark place - it is Catherine's that ends up going there. Buffyverse is karmic - you reap what you sow. Catherine journeyed into that dark place to access her powers and eventually got stuck there - trapped within the very cheerleading trophy she still coveted. Willow on the other hand, gets a reprieve after she unleashes dark magic in the Bronze and on the alleys of Sunnydale (Smashed and Wrecked Season 6, Btvs). She goes cold turkey, gives up the magic as a pesky addiction.

In the beginning of Apocalypse Now - Martin Sheen's character, Marlow, is barely sane. He has killed too many men, done too many covert operations, and is drunkenly climbing the walls of his hotel room in Saigon waiting for his next assignment. The military sobers him up and sends him into the deepest darkest part of Cambodian jungles to assassinate a top ranking military officer, Col. Kurtz, who has become something of an embarrassment. Their rational: let's send a monster to kill a monster - if we're lucky they'll kill each other.

Spike is a vampire, a self-described killer. He is an insane vampire, the government has placed a chip in his head that makes it impossible for him to hurt living things; he can only unleash his bloodlust upon his own kind. In Season One of Btvs - Giles describes vampires as hollow, as evil, as killers. Due to his chip and his love for the slayer, a good person, Spike has become a little like Marlow in Apocalypse Now - a killer stuck between the world of the living and the world of the dead. As Buffy succinctly puts it in Smashed: "Poor Spikey. Can't be a human, can't be a vampire. Where the hell do you fit in?"

Willow on the other hand is a bit like Colonel Kurtz. Kurtz is described in Apocalypse Now as an educated man, a man of poetry and music, as well as a very courageous one. Kurtz takes the greatest risks - picks the hardest and least rewarding assignments. He entered the war to do good, to exhibit his bravery, to be the hero and for his efforts got one meaningless medal after another. Instead of taking a higher military command, Kurtz takes a lower and extremely dangerous parachuting assignment with Black Ops to go into the heart of the jungle and fight evil. Willow also wants to fight evil, as she states way back in Season 3, Choices to Buffy, "I just realized that that's what I want to do. Fight evil, help people. I mean, I-I think it's worth doing. And I don't think you do it because you have to. It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in."

In Apocalypse Now, Marlow notes how similar he is to Kurtz. They are both educated men who have become killers out of necessity. Spike and Willow also come from a similar place. They both started out as innocents, geeky, romantic students, who consider violence something best handled by the police.

Willow: Uh, this may be the dumb question, but shouldn't we call the police?? We don't have to say vampires. We, we could just say that there's a, a bad man. (Harvest, Season 1, Btvs)

SPIKE: I prefer not to think of such dark, ugly business at all. That's what the police are for. I prefer placing my energies into creating things of beauty.(Fool For Love, Season 5, Btvs).

They are also both summarily rejected by people they love and want. Spike by Cecily who tells him that he is beneath her. Willow by Xander who clearly prefers Buffy and tells her somewhat cruelly that she is just one of the guys. Both are viewed as powerless and therefore beneath Xander and Cecily's notice. Xander and Cecily are holding out for better things. It is not until they obtain power as a witch and a vampire - that they start obtaining affection, for Spike - Drusilla and for Willow - OZ and later Tara. As has been pointed out by other posters on Cross & Stake, Tara first took an interest in Willow because of her power. Willow even tells Buffy in Wrecked, Season 6 - that Tara would never have looked at her if she hadn't been magically inclined.

But Spike like the character Marlow in Apocalypse Now has been on this journey longer than Willow has. Willow isn't a monster yet. Spike has been one for quite some time. He's killed to obtain certain rewards, whether they be blood, legendary status among his kind, or the affection of his lover Drusilla. Now that he's lost all these rewards - he's discovered how truly meaningless they were. Drusilla's love was in some ways hollow. The moment Angelus came back into the picture, he was dumped. He had to team up with Buffy to get her back. And the whole big bad trip also seems hollow. As he states in Becoming Part II, Season 2 Btvs: "We like to talk big. Vampires do. 'I'm going to destroy the world.' That's just tough guy talk. The truth is, I like this world?" Truth is, whatever he might say, he doesn't really fancy ending all existence, it's sort of hollow. This could be the reason most of his evil schemes fail, his heart just isn't in it anymore. He has become a bit like the Marlow character in Apocalypse Now, tired, bored, lonely, wishing he could have the girl, wondering if he's doomed.

Willow on the other hand is just beginning to get a taste of it. And Spike understands Willow. Spike sees Willow's need to unleash her pain onto others. Her insecurity. She is a lot like him. They both react emotionally to problems and do so violently.

In Something Blue - right before Willow casts her dangerous "I will it so spell" in response to her pain when OZ , her boyfriend, leaves her, Giles, Buffy and Spike have the following discussion:  


>   
>  Giles: She seems to be coping better with Oz's departure, don't you think?  
>  Buffy: She still has a way to go, but yeah - I think she's dealing.  
>  Spike: What, are you people blind? She's hangin' on by a thread. Any ninny can see that.

Then in Tough Love after Glory has just brain-sucked poor Tara, causing her to go insane. Spike and Buffy discuss Willow's reaction to this. Buffy is convinced that Willow won't do anything. Spike isn't so sure.  


>   
>  SPIKE: So she's not gonna do anything rash then.  
>  BUFFY: No. I explained that there was no point.  
>  SPIKE: (walks a little closer) Mm-hmm.  
>  BUFFY: What?  
>  SPIKE: You - so you're saying that a ... powerful and mightily pissed-off witch ... was plannin' on going and spillin' herself a few pints of god blood until you, what, "explained"?  
>  BUFFY: You think she'd ... no. I told Willow it would be like suicide.  
>  SPIKE: I'd do it. (looks down at the ground) Right person. Person I loved. (looks at Buffy) I'd do it.

Both times, Spike is right. Willow casts a dangerous spell in Something Blue and in Tough Love unleashes dark magic on Glory. She breaks open the book on "Darkest Magic", pulls out a bag of knives, and visits her vengeance on the hell-god who hurt her friend. Willow makes it clear in this scene and the ones that follow that she is not afraid to reach into the darkest area of her soul to fight monsters.

> WILLOW: Cassiel by your second star...  
>  GLORY: Uhh. It's the lover. (walks forward) That's so cute.  
>  WILLOW: Hold mine victim as in tar. (The air around Glory shimmers and she suddenly cannot move forward. She looks at Willow in surprise). I ... owe ... you ... pain! (Tough Love, Season 5, Bvts)

In Apocalypse Now, Marlow identifies with Kurtz's dark ideology; it is in many ways like his own. Kurtz tells Marlow that the military is too weak, too namby-pamby, that they don't have the guts, stamina to go the distance. The only way to fight the enemy is to become them, no, worse than them. He had lost too many men the other way. In avenging his men's deaths - he realized the only way to win a war is to embrace the darkness; to have the guts, the courage to go where the enemy has already gone, to become the enemy's worst nightmare. Willow certainly appears to agree with this - in The Gift, she accesses dark magic to fight Glory. In Bargaining, she kills a fawn to bring Buffy back. She believes like Kurtz does that the ends justify the means, a philosophy that Spike has also more or less taken to heart. But like Marlow, in Apocalypse Now, Spike appears to be having doubts. Is darkness worth the price - if you become a monster in the process? If you lose your soul?

Marlow's journey to locate Kurtz takes him past an increasing array of horrible acts committed by himself and those around him. Spike is on a similar journey, and like Marlow, he is a killer traveling down it. He witnesses and conducts horrible acts ranging from emotional manipulation, thievery, dark sex, gratuitous violence, basically the darkest sides of human nature. In The INITIATIVE Spike tries to kill Willow, only to be prevented by a chip, and instead has an oddly touching conversation with her. Earlier in Lover's Walk, he threatens to kill Willow and Xander, if Willow doesn't cast a love spell for him, only to drop the whole idea and set them free. And in Yoko Factor, he teams up with Adam to split the Scooby Gang apart, only to switch gears and let Buffy know what he did, hinting that he spoke to her friends and that's why they are having problems. There are countless other episodes that I could describe but this is already quite long and I think you get the idea.

Now in Season 6 - when Buffy comes to him in Wrecked, hunting her sister and Willow, because Willow is apparently addicted to magic now and visiting some dealer named Rack - Spike, still referring to himself as the big bad, states she can't find Rack's place because he cloaks it, you can only sense it if "you're a big bad, a witch or a vampire." I always found it odd, that when he and Buffy started looking for it, Spike couldn't sense it and Willow could. Just as I find it odd this season and the end of last, the number of times Spike has expressed a desire to either be treated like a man or to become one. He has become tired of being the soulless monster.

In The Gift, when he and Buffy are selecting weapons to fight Glory, he thanks her for treating him like a man and not a monster.  
SPIKE: I know you'll never love me. (Buffy pauses halfway up the stairs, turns back to look at Spike.) I know that I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man. And that's...

Then later in Bargaining Part II - Spike burns himself picking up a cross, swearing as he does so. And later still in Once More With Feeling, he sings:"You have to go one living, So one of us is living."

In Tabula Rasa - when he loses his memory and discovers to his horror that he is a vampire and not a superhero, he expresses a heartfelt, almost comic wish, "I must be a noble vampire. A good guy. On a mission of redemption. I help the hopeless. I'm a vampire with a soul."

Then finally in Smashed - when Buffy walks away from him, refusing to discuss the kisses they've exchanged or acknowledge that there is anything between them, he states: "A man can change." To which Buffy callously replies: "You're not a man. You're a thing." One wonders if Spike forgot.

Is it any wonder he wants to become a man again, a "real boy"? He has nothing as a vampire. He is lost. And he reminds me quite a bit of Martin Sheen in the opening portion of Apocalypse Now, lying on a bed in drunken haze wondering which end is up and whether life is worth living. The slayer can't love him - he has no soul, he is a monster. Sheen's character Marlow doesn't dare return home - how would they accept a killer? He's done too much. Can a monster ever be redeemed? Can a man who has become a monster reclaim his soul? Is there a way out of the heart of darkness? Colonel Kurtz does not believe so - but Kurtz has gone further than Marlow and Spike, when we find Kurtz he is described in both the book and movie as hollow, with a bald head, soaked in sweat like an amber death's head. His home is decorated with disemboweled corpses and heads sit on pikes on his front steps. He shows no remorse for his actions, believes they are justified and dares Marlow to kill him. His voice is hollow, dark and his face half cast in shadow. The man Kurtz was before he entered the jungle is gone.

In As You Were, Sam describes two shamans who practiced dark magic in the jungles of South America in a similar manner: "You know, back in the jungle ... we had not one, but two hard-core shamans working for us ... they were working the dark magicks, and ... got addicted. And now they're gone. Gone ... as in ... there's nothing left." Darkness can be addictive once unleashed. Willow knows this, she has had a taste of it. But she has not yet experienced what Kurtz experienced, she has not been tested. Spike knows the danger she's in, he like Marlow has been there, he knows how freeing a good bit of violence can be and unlike Xander in Older and Far Away supports Willow's decision not to cast a spell to let them out of the house.

Spike is about to go down Marlow's path and Willow is about to follow Kurtz's. The paths each choose are based on what each wants, what motivates them. Spike wants to reclaim his manhood, his soul, to become what he once was, to reclaim a sense of self, just as Marlow's reason was to find himself -both wish to find the portion of themselves that they'd lost long ago in the jungle. Willow's reasons are somewhat darker. She is still at the beginning of her journey; she hasn't really gone into the jungle yet. Her friends have kept her out of it. She has not been truly tempted. But like Kurtz, she has the darkness inside her and like Kurtz she does believe that the ends justify the means. And like Kurtz - when pushed, she will do anything to defeat an enemy.

In the end - our choices are often dictated by what lies inside us, by our hopes and dreams and insecurities. Good and Evil/ Light and Dark are in reality separated by a razor thin edge. Marlow realizes in Apocalypse Now that he and Kurtz are two sides of the same coin, Marlow could be Kurtz and Kurtz could be Marlow, the line between the two is razor thin. Except Marlow leaves Kurtz behind in the ruins of the jungle, and escapes it intact yet impacted by what he's seen. Marlow and Kurtz are symbolically two sides of one person, with the ability to flip either way. Spike and Willow are similarly linked - reacting often out of passion instead of thought. Spike and Willow's destinations are also dictated by the path they choose and the reasons they choose it. The same thing is true about us. That is part of growing up, choosing a path, taking a journey and following it wherever it may lead. And some of those paths may lead into darkness, some into light and some into both. If you choose to journey into the heart of darkness to obtain justice, to defeat the enemy by becoming the enemy, then you will end up like Col. Kurtz, a monster stuck in darkness, soulless, gone. If you choose to journey into the heart of darkness to reclaim a portion of yourself, then perhaps you will exit like Marlow, intact but forever impacted by the experience. As Nietzche states:"Lest ye not do battle with monsters, lest ye become a monster yourself and when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you."


End file.
